In the refugee camps of Eckledun...Kevin tries to dance even
faster! And faster! And faster still! The audience look quite impressed.
Sigmund, though, pays them no mind, for he is a little too busy hiding his shame from being totally overshadowed by Art's info-gathering skills.
"Well, I gathered mostly the same information as you, but, for what I heard, demons are also involved in all this. Hmm, the Gub said that they have been sentient for about a week, so all that has happened was pretty recent. I suspected about the takeover as I went around Mothdale, but I did not expect the assailants to go away," he says at first, but is struck by an idea.
"Unless the making of the Gub was planned by them! But who would be able to make something like this? It is troubling. So much death without apparent reason. And the Gub would actually benefit from having more people around, specially their Archmage. It doesn't make sense.""Their archwizard was apparently some weirdo. Specialized in shields and stuff like that. Maybe that ties into the whole thing? Didn't have any apprentices. Lived alone in his tower, apparently."Sigmund merely sighs and continues.
"But we have to attend to more urgent matters first. The people seem to be distracted, and we could perfectly steal the soul of this poor mage inside this tent, or we could try to pay him to get him back at Mothdale. So, let's try the less-barbaric solution first. I'll check if the other's have some money, as I suspect Mark has looted my body before I have been transferred to it. When I come back to handle it to you, well, I think that I can leave the negotiation on you hands, assuming that whoever is inside the tent is a life mage.""Yeah, sure."As
Mark tries to keep up, Kevin just increases the speed and complexity of his footwork up until the point where he feels one of his legs give way - with a painful twist and a nasty wobble, Kevin is sent sprawling to the ground, which makes the audience emit a collective 'aw!' of crushing disappointment before they lose interest and start wandering off. Ah, the treacherous ways of men and women with short attention spans. Sigmund, slightly miffed, walks over and gathers some coins from the ground - or tries to, anyway - seems a lot of the audience picked their (well, maybe not their own, strictly speaking) money off the ground before leaving. Damn these wily refugees! He turns to the injured Kevin and his buddy.
"I need all the money you have to pay for the life mage to go the Mothdale. These people are all refugees from a massacre there, so this is not an easy task.""Mark looted our bodies, I think he'll have any coins we had," Kevin says, still rubbing his injured knee.
"Yeah, I got the coins, now let's give these people a proper show," Mark says, seemingly looking at nothing at all (granted, he doesn't actually need to face anything to see it, unlike his friends) while handing Sigmund his 9 coppers and 6 silvers. And despite Mark's unreadable method of perception, Kevin gets the feeling that Mark is looking at him. Very closely, no less. Sigmund decides to leave them to it for now and hands Art the coins.
"I... don't think this'll help that much, but hey, you never know. Unto the breach and all that. Wish me luck!" Art says, walking off and disappearing into the healer's tent.
In the basement of the Red Tower of Power...Niklas, guessing that he probably does make for a better test subject than the kid, agrees to testing.
"Ah, you look competent though! But it's not like it's the first time I've run the risk of being killed by magic, so I'm sure I won't die this time. Magic away, then!""Okay, here goes! Zippety... BOOP!" the boy says, violently poking his fingers into Niklas' eyes at the last word.
[Lifeboy's magic roll: 4]
Niklas recoils a bit from the poke, and, while rubbing his eyes, notices that the basement looks quite a lot brighter now! He can actually see! Hooray!
"Okay, now me! Hooskity... ZOOG!" he shouts as he drives his fingers into his own eyes immediately afterwards.
[Lifeboy's magic roll: 4]
He yelps a little, then blinks a few times, regarding the room around him with wonderment. His eyes look somewhat... different now. There seems to be a pronounced mirrorlike quality to them now.
"It works! Yay me! Hooray for you! We make the bestest team, huh?""Bestest team, yay!""Three cheers for heroic adventure in the darkest of dungeons"In the Temple of Automaton Worship...Darren, once again, feels quite resigned to his fate.
"Ah... A bit more wouldn't hurt, but...""A bit... more, huh?" his friend (who Darren has dubbed a 'her' for the purposes of what comes next) says, and suddenly her body grows in each direction, her volume increasing threefold in seconds. She's about the size of three women horizontally now, Darren thinks.
"How about this? Have to make sure you're comfortable, right? Otherwise the whole thing falls apart."At a colorful castle by the seaside...Scott feels highly deflated and embarrassed as he regards the colorful castle, and nobody aside from him can really say why, to be honest.
"I... I can't stand," he states the obvious, floating weightlessly over to
Morton and attempting to rest on his surface. It seems to work at first, as Morton does seem somewhat impermeable by ectoplasm, but Scott feels his surface get uncomfortably hot the longer he spends near it, and buggers off within half a minute.
"I wouldn't bother much about it, good sir Scott. They may not receive much in the way of visitors. It must be dreadfully isolating, I fear," Morton says, moving over to the platform and settling atop it.
"I can't see inside the place. That's a sign there's something magical there," Justine says.
"Hopefully someone deserving of the gub.""I hope it is somebody agreeable. The color scheme seems to indicate so. Well, it could be somebody brutally annoying as well, of course," Tailor Craig says while they wait. Only about half a minute passes before an individual in a bright blue robe, his face obscured by a pointed black cowl, appears before them, and speaks in a high, mildly girlish, but still definitely male voice.
"You approach the secluded retreat of our mistress, Lady Melville!" he says cheerily.
"Do you have business here? Perhaps you are potential guests of an agreeable nature? Do you bear any messages?""We fit the first category best," Justine says.
"But we're also the second as well, of course," Tailor Craig adds.
"Then you are welcome!" the man says, and the world around the entire group turns to powder, blasted away like so much dust to reveal a huge entrance hall, the general color scheme making it rather obvious that it's the castle they already saw. Paintings of important-looking people cover the walls, and empty-looking fountains form a slightly desolate line running along the middle of two parallel ascending staircases along the sides of the room. There appear to be doors to the left and to the right, as well as past the fountains and on the second floor. The whole place looks a bit... dusty in places.
"Behave yourselves well! I shall go and rouse Lady Melville and tell her the good news!" the man says and disappears, leaving the group alone in the room. A moment passes.
"So I guess we-" Tailor Craig begins, but is cut off by the sudden reappearance of the man. With him appears to be a short, rather exquisitely beautiful maiden with bone-white skin, looking no more than nineteen years old at best. She seems to be dressed in somewhat old-fashioned, though nevertheless very well-made and nicely maintained finery. Also, her hands resemble slightly underdeveloped bat wings, as a side note, with the bones looking slightly misshapen and with bits of skin (still entirely white and partially transparent, with subtle blood vessels occasionally visible under the right light) stretched between the fingers and between her arms and the sides of her torso.
"Ladies, gentlemen, desks and blobs, I introduce Lady Pauline Melville, the mistress of the manor!" the red-robed man says, bowing while backing off from the maiden, arms outstretched toward her in a presenting gesture. Lady Melville giggles and curtseys.
"Oh, don't mind Henry," she says, flapping her arms a little as if by instinct before blushing and lowering them along her sides.
"He so rarely gets to introduce me. What brings you to my little corner of the world?"
Author
Topic: Life Begins At Death - Epilogue: We Live And Live Again (Read 564573 times)